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(A) Digitally enhanced false-color composite image (NIR, red and green spectral bands) of the center of the Roman city (Realvista 2007, Telespazio S.p.A., Rome, Italy), with maize and soy crop marks. (B) Interpretation of (A).
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Processing and interpretation of July 2007 digital visible and near-infrared aerial photographs, coupled by a digital terrain model, has allowed for detailed reconstruction of the topography and the paleoenvironmental setting of the Roman city of Altinum, shedding new light on the far origins of Venice. Images were taken during severe dry condition...
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... In general, highresolution remote sensing data are only accessible in select regions of the Roman world, covering significant extents. As for Italy, it is worth mentioning some well-known case studies from the Venetian-Friulian Plain (NE Italy) as, for example, Cittanova (Tozzi and Harari 1984;Calaon 2006), Altinum (Ninfo et al. 2009;Mozzi et al. 2016), Padova (Mozzi et al. 2018), where the ancient features have been recognized and studied thanks to extraordinary visibility and the availability of large sets of high-resolution data including LiDAR, aerial and satellite imagery. In these plain environments, the ancient topography has undergone substantial transformations due to modern agricultural activities. ...
... In the specific case of pits, the abundance of impermeable organic-rich sediment, which constitutes the infill material, retains water and appears as a darker trace in aerial and satellite imagery. Similarly, even during crop season, vegetation growing over filled pits benefits from higher water content; consequently, it will be less prone to hydric stress during droughts, it will also grow and reach maturity faster, appearing once again as a darker green trace (Ninfo et al. 2009). These kinds of optical traces are easily detectable on bare soil (as soilmarks) and crops (as cropmarks) in the study area; therefore, they have been of great aid in mapping and characterizing extraction areas in this work. ...
The topography of alluvial plains in Europe has been strongly affected and overprinted by different diachronic human activities, and modern land use has reworked geomorphological and archaeological traces, often hindering the reconstruction of past landscapes and the assessment of ancient environmental impacts. In this work, set in the distal Venetian-Friulian Plain, in northeastern Italy, we took advantage of the presence of the last remnants of semi-natural lowland forests, and we combined high-resolution remotely sensed data to detect and map a specific type of archaeological trace related to clay quarrying. Analysis of digital terrain models (DTMs) obtained from LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) revealed topographic traces underneath forested or recently deforested areas while photointerpretation of satellite and aerial imagery was crucial in detecting levelled traces. Moreover, we used hand augering techniques to assess the depth and infill material of the clay quarry evidence. Our investigation recognized nine Roman sites, consisting of hundreds of quadrangular pits (124.8 m² size – 1 m depth), which lie on top of Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) alluvial clays. We infer these pits to be Roman quarried workshops connected to nearby kilns, where clays were extracted for ceramic building material (CBM) and pottery production. The unique signature of such traces, coupled with their resilience in the highly anthropized study area, underlines a Roman proto-industrial impact on the landscape, and suggests the existence of similar evidence in other plains under the Roman domain.
... As a test site, we selected a portion of NE Italy, which corresponds to one of the alluvial plains where the relict traces are particularly evident at the surface. In fact, their detailed mapping allowed significant advances in deciphering both the evolution of the fluvial systems and the archaeological patterns (e.g., Cassiani et al., 2020;Fontana, Monegato, et al., 2014;Ninfo et al., 2009;Tozzi & Harari, 1984). Nevertheless, investigations carried out in this area mostly neglected the proximal sector of the plain where, even if braided pattern is dominant, it has been mainly mapped with a general symbology indicating the occurrence of ancient multiple palaeochannels, but avoiding the details of the relict landforms (Bondesan et al., 2015;Fontana et al., 2019). ...
The increasing availability of remotely sensed data has provided an enormous quantity of information for studying the geomorphology of exposed surfaces of alluvial plains. In many cases, the key for reconstructing their formation lies in the recognition of optical traces related to abandoned palaeochannels and their morphometric characteristics. Abundant braided palaeohydrographic traces are documented in alluvial plains of northern Italy, where large sectors of the present surface correspond to landforms related to fluvioglacial systems supplied by Alpine glaciers during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Nevertheless, the complexity of multichannel patterns, the overlapping field division systems and urbanization, hinder the efforts to manually map these traces. In this work, we used high‐resolution aerial photos of the proximal sector of the Friulian Plain (NE Italy) to train an Attention‐UNet deep learning algorithm to segment palaeohydrographic traces. The trained model was used to automatically recognize braided palaeochannels over 232 km². The resulting map represents a significant step for investigating the long‐term alluvial dynamics. Moreover, we assessed the robustness of our method by deploying the model in three other areas in northern Italy with comparable characteristics, as well as in Montenegro, near Podgorica. In each case, the braided pattern was successfully mapped by the algorithm. This work highlights the breakthrough potential of deep learning methods to rapidly detect complex geomorphological traces in cultivated plains, taking into consideration advantages, challenges and limitations.
... La città romana di Altino rappresenta uno dei centri principali dell'arco adriatico dall'età protostorica fino alla tarda-antichità. Il suo abbandono intorno al VII secolo d.C. ha permesso la conservazione del deposito archeologico e la sua successiva indagine tramite telerilevamento, che ha mostrato le tracce sepolte dell'impianto urbano antico (Ninfo et al. 2009). Il progetto, oggetto di una recente ricerca, 7 si poneva come obiettivo la creazione di una carta archeologica tridimensionale del sito tramite l'integrazione degli strumenti GIS e BIM, al fine di ottenere un unico ambiente digitale per l'archiviazione del record archeologico e le successive attività di ricerca (Delpozzo, Balletti 2023). ...
Nowadays, there is a growing interest in applying BIM (Building Information Modeling) technologies to cultural heritage and archaeological sites. These applications are at an early stage for archaeology, but relevant issues clearly arise from the adaptation of BIM, originally intended for AEC, to such a diverse field. To highlight these problems, three case studies from Veneto (Italy) have been examined: two protohistoric burial mounds in perishable material from Padua and Este, and a Roman city gate at Altinum. The paper highlights the main difficulties encountered during the elaboration process, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using this specific tool. The aim is to reflect on the possibilities and reasons for the use of BIM in archaeology, and possibly to start a critical theoretical discussion about it.
... It is worth citing the fact that the first meters of subsoil are constituted by anthropic fillings or by natural sediments influenced by human actions, including the presence of many archeological remains from multiple ages (from Mesolithic to Modern Age), with a high frequency of Roman and medieval artifacts and infrastructures. [31][32][33] The shallow stratigraphy of the historical center of Venice can be exemplified by the stratigraphic sketch of Fig. 4. The "Landfill" unit is representative of highly heterogeneous anthropic material, testifying the long and complex history of urbanization of the salt marshes and mudflats on which Venice has been built. 31,32,34 The ground level constitutes the top of the unit, with an average elevation of 1.3 m a.s.l.; the lower boundary has a highly variable depth, with an average elevation of À1.5 m a.s.l., down to depths of À6/7 m from ground level in correspondence of filled tidal channels and structures' foundations, mainly constituted by wood piles. ...
... [31][32][33] The shallow stratigraphy of the historical center of Venice can be exemplified by the stratigraphic sketch of Fig. 4. The "Landfill" unit is representative of highly heterogeneous anthropic material, testifying the long and complex history of urbanization of the salt marshes and mudflats on which Venice has been built. 31,32,34 The ground level constitutes the top of the unit, with an average elevation of 1.3 m a.s.l.; the lower boundary has a highly variable depth, with an average elevation of À1.5 m a.s.l., down to depths of À6/7 m from ground level in correspondence of filled tidal channels and structures' foundations, mainly constituted by wood piles. This unit has a high heterogeneity both in terms of materials (sand, silt, clay, gravel, masonry fragments, wood tables and piles, archeological remains, etc.) as well as geotechnical characteristics. ...
Venice from the perspective of water resources and hydro-geomorphological dynamics, is emblematic of the complex geosphere-anthroposphere interactions that could characterize a coastal urban area. On the one hand, the hydrogeological setting is extremely heterogenous and complex, with interconnected processes acting at multiple spatiotemporal scales, as often happen in areas with interactions between land and marine processes. On the other hand, anthropic pressures and disturbances on the geosphere are extremely complex, heterogeneous and, again, acting at multiple spatiotemporal scales. This chapter focuses mainly on groundwater related issues on the urban area of Venice municipality, comprising the historical island and the hinterland, with some reference to the interactions with surface waters. In Section 2 of the chapter, the hydrogeological setting of the area under scrutiny is introduced, highlighting the necessity to take into account a multiscale perspective for the understanding of the hydrogeological framework. In Section 3, some historical aspects related to the hydrogeological modifications and water management are introduced, pointing out as since the Serenissima Republic, centuries ago, “landscape managers” were aware of the complexity of the geohydrological system and of the necessity to adopt an holistic approach. Finally, in Section 4, the main current issues related to groundwater in the area, including the connections with surface waters, are introduced.
... In Italy, numerous seaports and associated fluvial harbours have been intensively studied, providing an in-depth understanding of the human activities and anthropogenic pressures on environments since the emergence and development of these port complexes. Harbours such as Altinum-Venice (Ninfo et al., 2009), Portus Lunae-Luni (Bini et al., 2012), Portus-Rome (Sadori et al., 2010(Sadori et al., , 2015Mazzini et al., 2011), Ostia-Rome (Salomon et al., 2018), Neapolis-Naples (Allevato et al., 2010;Di Donato et al., 2018), Portus Pisanus-Pisa (Kaniewski et al., 2018) or Pisa S. Rossore (Mariotti Lippi et al., 2007;Bini et al., 2015) have furnished key information on how human societies have shaped long-term landscape dynamics. While most studies have focused on the harbour phase, few analyses have focused on the post-harbour period, when structures were abandoned and anthropogenic pressures decreased or even disappeared (e.g. ...
The fluvial harbour of Aquileia (Italy), one of the most important Roman trading centres in the Mediterranean, was abandoned after the city's destruction in 452 AD. The deserted harbour evolved into a swamp surrounded by a floodplain that has recorded the anthropogenic, environmental and climatic pressures that have occurred during the last 1500 years in the northern Adriatic. Focusing on the period since 500 AD, we here reconstruct the area's long-term ecosystem dynamics. We show that ecosystem dynamics mainly mirror the climate phases of the pre-industrial era. After the Roman era, anthropogenic activities (agriculture, pasture and fire activity) declined in scope and amplitude and are chronologically limited (from the late 7th to the early 13th centuries AD), acting as a background pressure on ecosystems. The main non-human impacts recorded by ecosystems correspond to the Late Antique Little Ice Age, defined by an average temperature anomaly of −2.04 ± 0.17 °C, exceeding the Pre-industrial Little Ice Age by −1.26 ± 0.16 °C in severity. The temperatures reconstructed for the Medieval Climate Anomaly are close to those recorded for the 20th century AD (average anomaly of 0.08 ± 0.15 °C) but they differ from the 21st century AD, according to the CRUTEM4 data. Aquileia shows that ancient harbours are key areas to understand how climate and human societies have shaped northern Adriatic environments since the post-Roman period.
... Its inhabitants colonized the northern lagoon islands in the 5th century CE and created the earliest settlement at Venice. This site was particularly suited for testing the Python script code because the features detected could be compared with the results of a study that reconstructed the urban topography and palaeoenvironmental setting of Altinum using high -resolution near-infrared (NIR) aerial photographs 137 . Traces of buried hydrological features are visible in the area near the Roman city. ...
The necessity of sustainable development for landscapes has emerged as an important theme in recent decades. Current methods take a holistic approach to landscape heritage and promote an interdisciplinary dialogue to facilitate complementary landscape management strategies. With the socio-economic values of the “natural” and “cultural” landscape heritage increasingly recognised worldwide, remote sensing tools are being used more and more to facilitate the recording and management of landscape heritage. The advent of freeware cloud computing services has enabled significant improvements in landscape research allowing the rapid exploration and processing of satellite imagery such as the Landsat and Copernicus Sentinel datasets. This research represents one of the first applications of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) Python application programming interface (API) in studies of historic landscapes. The complete free and open-source software (FOSS) cloud protocol proposed here consists of a Python code script developed in Google Colab, which could be adapted and replicated in different areas of the world. A multi-temporal approach has been adopted to investigate the potential of Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to detect buried hydrological and anthropogenic features along with spectral index and spectral decomposition analysis. The protocol's effectiveness in identifying palaeo-riverscape features has been tested in the Po Plain (N Italy).
... Moving from previous considerations, we started to analyze some undefined artificial and natural evidence visible in multitemporal aerial images. Similar traces are identified in the Venetian plain [1,14], and their analysis could reveal important archeological infrastructures and sites [5,6,16,17]. More in general, these systems of anthropogenic traces are generally found in alluvial and coastal plains and often related to ancient settlements [18,19]. ...
This paper reports the results of the multidisciplinary study carried out in the SE area of Ceggia, in the eastern part of the Venetian Plain. The area has been characterized, since ancient times, by numerous morphological transformation, due to the presence of lagoon and marshes, and interested by repeated reclamation. Aerial and satellite images have identified many natural and anthropogenic traces. From a geophysical point of view, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) combined with frequency-domain electromagnetic measurements (FDEM) can help to discriminate the spatial distribution of different buried structures in conductive systems. The electrical conductivity is, in fact, directly related to the soil moisture content. The multidisciplinary approach adopted in this context, with the results obtained thanks to the contribution of aerial and satellite images, historical cartography, archaeological survey, geophysical measurements, geomorphological characterization, and 14C dating, allow us to suggest a possible interpretation of the different traces highlighted in the studied area. This approach suggests a potentially useful and replicable methodology to study similar evidence, such as along the North Adriatic coast and in broad sectors of the Po Valley. The key issue, in this kind of system, lies, in fact, in the possibility to date and compare traces visible on the surface by remote sensing, establishing their interest from an archaeological and geomorphological point of view using an integration of field measurements. At the end of this research, the classification of the different anomalies found in this hydraulic variable context, thanks to the multidisciplinary approach here adopted, suggest new hypotheses for reading the complex history of this understudied area.
... In fact, the foundation of Venice in the eponymous lagoon (on the archipelago of Rivus Altus) during the fifth-seventh centuries ce resulted from the threat of Lombardian invasions of the Roman municipium of Altinum (Ammerman 2003;Christie 2006). Ninfo et al. (2009) described the configuration of this Roman city, located some 12 km northeast of Venice (Fig. 6.5: B). The study of aerial photographs with a digital elevation model (dem) revealed important harbor structures with an artificial canal network linked to the transportation of goods to the lagoonal harbor. ...
... SW-NE, although satellite images do not show a clear bar-scroll pattern and the position of the relevant channel fill. Reach B cuts over Reach A suggesting that it developed after a chute channel that cut off Reach A [78], which was later abandoned. Additionally, along the eastern side of Reach B, (Figure 4d,f) a divergent pattern of minor channels point to a local development of a crevasse splay sourced from the downstream side of the bend. ...
Over the past few millennia, meandering fluvial channels drained coastal landscapes accumulating sedimentary successions that today are permeable pathways. Propagation of pollutants, agricultural exploitation and sand liquefaction are the main processes of environmental interest affecting these sedimentary bodies. The characterization of these bodies is thus of utmost general interest. In this study, we particularly highlight the contribution of noninvasive (remote and ground-based) investigation techniques, and the case study focuses on a late Holocene meander bend of the southern Venetian Plain (Northeast Italy). Electromagnetic induction (EMI) investigations, conducted with great care in terms of sonde stability and positioning, allowed the reconstruction of the electrical conductivity 3D structure of the shallow subsurface, revealing that the paleochannel ranges in depth between 0.8 and 5.4 m, and defines an almost 260 m-wide point bar. The electrical conductivity maps derived from EMI at different depths define an arcuate morphology indicating that bar accretion started from an already sinuous channel. Sedimentary cores ensure local ground-truth and help define the evolution of the channel bend. This paper shows that the combination of well-conceived and carefully performed inverted geophysical surveys, remote sensing and direct investigations provides evidence of the evolution of recent shallow sedimentary structures with unprecedented detail.
... While buried urban structures can often be located and identified through geophysical prospections and remote sensing (Ninfo et al., 2009), the more ephemeral evidence of agropastoral activities hidden under a thick pile of urban deposits can be easily reached by drilling, remaining otherwise inaccessible to research. Thus, the study of high resolution near-site drilling stratigraphies, combining and integrating microbotanical data with sedimentary and radiocarbon evidence, is a strategy of far-reaching applicability to the study of the early history of urban centers, especially in terms of settlement continuity before the presumed foundation of an urban center itself. ...
The hilltop town of Bergamo, at the southern fringe of the Italian Alps, represents a typical example of the stepped emergence of a prehistoric settlement developing into a proto-historic urban center in the Iron Age. We present here unprecedented multidisciplinary evidence based on several near-site stratigraphies, supported by a robust radiocarbon chronology and by a continuous fine-resolution sedimentary and paleoecological record from a pond used for livestock watering, which was intercepted by drilling underneath the modern Catholic Cathedral. The obtained chronostratigraphy documents the development of arable and fallow land including cereals, legumes and livestock husbandry starting as early as 3355 yrs. cal BP (median of modeled calibrated ages, i.e., 15th century BC). This evidence indicates that already in the Middle Bronze Age the very center of the hilltop of the Bergamo Hill supported an early farming center. Land use reached an acme between 2980 and 2753 yrs. cal BP, triggering intense soil erosion by runoff processes. Paleobotanical evidence suggests uphill grapevine cultivation at the southern Alpine fringe at 2900 yrs. cal BP. Data support settlement continuity until around 2700 yrs. cal BP (8th century BC), before the growth of the Celtic town in the 6th–5th century BC. The location and development of the farming center yet in the Bronze Age might have been promoted by topographical diversification, high geomorphic weathering rate, soil suitability for agriculture and pastoralism, and water availability on the northern side of the hill, secured by orographic precipitation in warmer seasons.
